Molson Coors Beats Q2 Profit, Sales Forecasts

Molson Coors Brewing (NYSE:TAP) announced a second-quarter profit of $105.1 million, down 53% from $222.8 million in the same period last year.

Excluding excise taxes, sales rose 7% to $999.4 million. That beat Wall Street’s estimate of sales of $935 million, the Wall Street Journal noted.

Time to Raise a Glass to Boston Beer

For the quarter, adjusted EPS was $1.38, which topped the $1.19 a share that analysts had expected.

Shares of Molson Coors were mostly flat in Tuesday afternoon trading.

The company’s $3.54 billion acquisition of StarBev, a brewer operating in Eastern and Central Europe, was completed in June.

Molson’s MillerCoors joint venture with SABMiller (PINK:SBMRY) posted earnings of $438.3 million on sales of $2.22 billion.

Beer volume for worldwide distribution rose 6.4% to 13.9 million hectoliters.

Rising commodity costs cut into earnings. Gross margins at the brewer decline from 43.9% last year, to 42% last quarter.